Abstract [en]

In this thesis a distributed, dynamic, load aware, joint power and frequency allocation protocol for 4G networks along with system-level simulated results are presented. In all cellular networks, a key limiting factor for throughput is inter-cell interference, especially at the cell edges. Several methods have been proposed and adopted in each mobile network generation to cancel or suppress its effects, whereas each method has its drawbacks in terms of receiver complexity or additional control nodes. However, the proposed protocol presented here does not impose any architectural changes. In 4G networks such as LTE, the choice of OFDMA for the air interface has paved the way for selective frequency and power allocation in the available spectrum. Taking advantage of this opportunity, fractional frequency reuse (FFR) has been proposed in OFDMA based mobile networks in order to reduce the throughput loss at the cell edges due to inter-cell interference. In FFR, center users lose part of available spectrum that is dedicated to the edge users. Our protocol aims to minimize this loss of center users incurred by FFR, at the cost of minimal degradation at the edges.

An eNodeB, only when overloaded, requests its neighbours’ edge band to be used for its center users at a reduced power level. This is done via small message exchange between the eNodeBs. The neighbors of the overloaded eNodeBs solve a small local knapsack problem to decide whether band lending is feasible or not. A distinguishing feature of this protocol is the power level adjustment for the borrowed band, which is mutually decided by the borrower and lender. The band is released when it is not needed or it is causing unacceptable loss to the lender. The implementation is done in a Matlab based LTE system level simulator. For the implementation of our protocol in the simulator, starting point was implementation of FFR-3 functionality, a prerequisite and a baseline for comparison with our protocol.

Results are compared among three different setups of re-use1, FFR-3 and our protocol by varying number of overloaded eNodeBs for various numbers of scenarios and the comparison is made based on the center users’ throughput, edge users’ throughput. An estimation of time and protocol overhead is also presented. We have observed center users’ throughput gain up to 46%, at the cost of 9% edge users’ throughput loss, when compared to the classic FFR-3 scheme. The overall system throughput goes up to 26 % in heavily loaded scenario.

The utility of the protocol for an LTE system is evident from the results, which is supported by the dynamic and decentralized nature of the protocol. This ensures better utilization of spectrum, by temporarily allocating more bandwidth where it is needed more.